Sentencing Commission Cannot Authorize Compassionate Release Based on First Step Act § 924(c) Anti-Stacking in the Seventh Circuit (Thacker Controls over U.S.S.G. § 1B1.13(b)(6))

1. Introduction

United States v. Eural Black (7th Cir. Mar. 11, 2025) sits at the intersection of (i) the First Step Act’s prospective-only reform of “stacked” mandatory minimum sentences under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) and (ii) the modern regime for prisoner-filed compassionate release motions under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A).

The parties were the United States (plaintiff-appellee) and Eural Black (defendant-appellant), who sought a sentence reduction after serving more than ten years of a 40-year sentence driven largely by stacked § 924(c) counts (a consecutive 5-year term plus a consecutive 25-year term, among other components).

The key legal issue was a separation-of-powers-and-statutory-authority question framed as a conflict between: (a) the Seventh Circuit’s earlier statutory interpretation in United States v. Thacker, holding that the First Step Act’s anti-stacking amendment cannot qualify as an “extraordinary and compelling reason” for compassionate release, and (b) the Sentencing Commission’s 2023 policy statement U.S.S.G. § 1B1.13(b)(6), which—under specified conditions—permits courts to treat certain nonretroactive changes in law as part of an extraordinary-and-compelling showing for unusually long sentences.

2. Summary of the Opinion

The Seventh Circuit affirmed the denial of Black’s compassionate release motion. It held that Thacker remains binding circuit law and that the Commission’s attempt, via § 1B1.13(b)(6), to allow the First Step Act’s § 924(c) anti-stacking change to serve as an extraordinary-and-compelling reason exceeds the Commission’s statutory authority.

The court reasoned that Congress made the anti-stacking amendment expressly nonretroactive, and allowing it to function as a compassionate-release eligibility trigger would effectively grant it retroactive effect—contrary to Congress’s direction in the First Step Act. Because 28 U.S.C. § 994(a) requires Sentencing Commission policy statements to be consistent with federal statutes, the Commission’s policy statement is invalid to the extent it conflicts with the First Step Act as interpreted in Thacker.

The court emphasized a narrower point: while § 924(c)’s anti-stacking change cannot itself create eligibility (alone or “in combination”), a district court may still consider that change at the discretionary stage (how much relief to grant) if the defendant is eligible based on other independent extraordinary-and-compelling reasons.

3. Analysis

3.1 Precedents Cited

  • United States v. Thacker, 4 F.4th 569 (7th Cir. 2021)
    Role: Central controlling precedent. Thacker held that the First Step Act’s anti-stacking amendment to § 924(c) “whether considered alone or in connection with other facts and circumstances, cannot constitute an ‘extraordinary and compelling’ reason” because that would improperly give a nonretroactive amendment retroactive effect.
  • United States v. King, 40 F.4th 594 (7th Cir. 2022)
    Role: Cited as part of the Seventh Circuit’s continued line following Thacker; identified by the Commission as representing one side of a circuit split.
  • United States v. Gunn, 980 F.3d 1178 (7th Cir. 2020)
    Role: Explained the post–First Step Act gap when the Sentencing Commission lacked a quorum and its existing policy statement did not apply to prisoner-initiated motions. The Black majority clarified that Thacker was not merely an interpretation of outdated guidelines but a direct statutory interpretation of § 3582(c)(1)(A).
  • United States v. Williams, 65 F.4th 343 (7th Cir. 2023)
    Role: Standard of review: abuse of discretion for denials; de novo review for legal questions.
  • Neal v. United States, 516 U.S. 284 (1996) and Mistretta v. United States, 488 U.S. 361 (1989)
    Role: Background on the Sentencing Reform Act and the Sentencing Commission’s institutional role (an independent agency in the judicial branch).
  • United States v. Davis, 588 U.S. 445 (2019)
    Role: Described pre–First Step Act § 924(c) stacking mechanics and the old 25-year consecutive mandatory minimum for subsequent § 924(c) counts.
  • Loper Bright Enters. v. Raimondo, 603 U.S. 369 (2024) (citing Batterton v. Francis, 432 U.S. 416 (1977))
    Role: Provided the framework the majority used for delegated statutory interpretation: courts respect valid delegations but must independently determine whether an agency acted within statutory bounds. This underwrote the court’s insistence that it—rather than the Commission—decides whether a policy statement conflicts with a federal statute.
  • United States v. LaBonte, 520 U.S. 751 (1997)
    Role: Reinforced that the Sentencing Commission’s discretion must yield to Congress’s specific directives.
  • United States v. Rutherford, 120 F.4th 360 (3d Cir. 2024)
    Role: The only other court of appeals identified as having addressed the clash between a Thacker-like circuit precedent and § 1B1.13(b)(6), holding that § 1B1.13(b)(6), as applied to § 924(c) stacking changes, conflicts with Congress’s will.
  • United States v. Andrews, 12 F.4th 255 (3d Cir. 2021); United States v. Austin, 125 F.4th 688 (5th Cir. 2025); United States v. McCall, 56 F.4th 1048 (6th Cir. 2022); United States v. Crandall, 25 F.4th 582 (8th Cir. 2022); and United States v. Jenkins, 50 F.4th 1185 (D.C. Cir. 2022)
    Role: Cited to show the circuit split (these decisions align with Thacker’s view that nonretroactive changes like § 924(c) anti-stacking cannot be extraordinary-and-compelling reasons).
  • United States v. Ruvalcaba, 26 F.4th 14 (1st Cir. 2022); United States v. McCoy, 981 F.3d 271 (4th Cir. 2020); United States v. Chen, 48 F.4th 1092 (9th Cir. 2022); and United States v. McGee, 992 F.3d 1035 (10th Cir. 2021)
    Role: Cited as the opposite side of the split, allowing consideration (in varying ways) of the anti-stacking change in compassionate release.
  • United States v. Jean, 108 F.4th 275 (5th Cir. 2024), overruled by United States v. Austin, 125 F.4th 688 (5th Cir. 2025)
    Role: Appears in the dissent as an illustration of evolving circuit law and the reasonableness of the Commission’s “compromise” approach.

3.2 Legal Reasoning

A. The “who decides” question: court precedent vs. Commission policy statement

The majority framed the case as a conflict between a judicial construction of a statute (Thacker’s reading of § 3582(c)(1)(A)) and an agency policy statement (§ 1B1.13(b)(6)) issued under an express delegation (28 U.S.C. § 994(t)). The court accepted the general proposition (supported by Loper Bright Enters. v. Raimondo) that an agency’s interpretation can supersede a court’s, but only within the scope of delegated authority.

B. The scope limitation: Commission policy statements must be consistent with federal statutes

The decision turns on 28 U.S.C. § 994(a), which requires that the Commission’s guidelines and policy statements be “consistent with all pertinent provisions of any Federal statute.” The majority treated this as a hard statutory ceiling on Commission discretion, echoing United States v. LaBonte’s principle that Commission discretion “must bow” to Congress’s specific directives.

C. Why § 1B1.13(b)(6) is invalid as applied to § 924(c) anti-stacking in this circuit

The majority reasoned that Thacker already decided the relevant “consistency” question: using § 924(c)’s nonretroactive anti-stacking change as an extraordinary-and-compelling reason would effectively make it retroactive, contradicting Congress’s explicit prospective-only choice in the First Step Act. Therefore, to the extent § 1B1.13(b)(6) permits eligibility based on that change, it conflicts with the First Step Act and thus exceeds Commission authority under § 994(a).

A key move is the court’s rejection of the argument that a discretionary compassionate-release regime is meaningfully different from mandatory retroactivity. The majority treated any eligibility rule keyed to the anti-stacking change—whether alone or as one factor among several—as an impermissible end-run around Congress’s nonretroactivity. This follows directly from Thacker’s formulation that the change cannot count “whether alone or in combination with other factors.”

D. Thacker is not a temporary “gap-filler”

Black argued Thacker should be understood as an interim measure during the Commission’s quorum lapse (as described in United States v. Gunn). The majority rejected this on two grounds:

  • Nature of Thacker’s holding: It directly interpreted the statute (§ 3582(c)(1)(A)), not merely an outdated guideline policy statement.
  • Thacker’s own limiting language: Even while acknowledging broad district court discretion “until” the Commission updated policy statements, Thacker warned that compassionate release cannot be used to grant relief “at odds with Congress’s express determination” that § 924(c) anti-stacking applies only prospectively.

E. Concurrence and dissent illuminate the fault lines

Judge Ripple’s concurrence grounded the result in stare decisis: United States v. Thacker was circulated under Circuit Rule 40(e) and not taken en banc, so a panel must follow it.

Judge Hamilton’s dissent reframed the problem: because Congress expressly delegated defining “extraordinary and compelling reasons” to the Commission in 28 U.S.C. § 994(t), courts should uphold § 1B1.13(b)(6) so long as it is reasonable and not actually inconsistent with the First Step Act. The dissent emphasized that § 1B1.13(b)(6) does not confer automatic resentencing (no “full retroactivity”), but instead sets a constrained, multi-factor gateway (unusually long sentence, 10 years served, gross disparity, individualized circumstances).

The majority, however, treated Thacker as already deciding that the anti-stacking change cannot serve even as part of eligibility. On that view, the dissent’s “compromise” characterization of § 1B1.13(b)(6) cannot cure the statutory conflict.

3.3 Impact

  • Immediate practical effect in the Seventh Circuit: Defendants cannot use the First Step Act’s § 924(c) anti-stacking amendment—alone or combined with other considerations— to establish eligibility for compassionate release. Motions relying solely on stacking disparity will fail as a matter of law.
  • Policy-statement limits: The opinion strengthens the proposition that Sentencing Commission policy statements may be disregarded when they exceed statutory authority—especially when they would operationally defeat a congressional nonretroactivity clause.
  • Strategic pleading shift: The court explicitly left room for defendants to seek compassionate release on other grounds (e.g., medical or family circumstances) and then ask the court to consider the anti-stacking change at the discretionary stage when calibrating the extent of any reduction.
  • Deepening (and clarifying) the circuit split: The decision aligns the Seventh Circuit with circuits that reject using nonretroactive sentencing reforms as extraordinary-and-compelling reasons (as reflected in the opinion’s split-citation list) and joins United States v. Rutherford in holding § 1B1.13(b)(6) ineffective in the § 924(c) context.
  • Potential Supreme Court attention: The court expressly acknowledged the lack of consensus and the possibility of eventual Supreme Court resolution. The split now implicates not just compassionate release interpretation, but also the Commission’s power to resolve splits via policy statements when Congress has included a nonretroactivity directive elsewhere.

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

  • “Stacking” under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c): Before the First Step Act, multiple § 924(c) convictions in one case could trigger a 5-year mandatory minimum on the first count and a 25-year mandatory minimum on each “second or subsequent” count—producing very long consecutive sentences. The First Step Act restricted the 25-year enhancement to later, separate prosecutions.
  • Nonretroactivity: When Congress changes sentencing law but says the change applies only going forward, people already sentenced under the old rule generally cannot claim the benefit unless some other lawful mechanism applies.
  • Compassionate release (18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A)): A narrow exception allowing courts to reduce sentences when “extraordinary and compelling reasons” exist and the reduction aligns with applicable Sentencing Commission policy statements.
  • Policy statements (U.S.S.G. § 1B1.13): Guidance issued by the Sentencing Commission about how to apply compassionate release. In 2023, the Commission added § 1B1.13(b)(6) to address unusually long sentences and changes in law creating gross disparities.
  • Delegation and limits (28 U.S.C. §§ 994(t) and 994(a)): Congress told the Commission to describe what counts as extraordinary-and-compelling, but also required policy statements to be consistent with federal statutes. The Seventh Circuit treated that consistency requirement as enforceable by courts and decisive here.
  • Eligibility vs. discretion: Even if a defendant is “eligible” (extraordinary-and-compelling reasons exist), a court still “may” reduce the sentence; it is not required to do so. The majority held that § 924(c) anti-stacking cannot be used to establish eligibility, but may be considered in deciding the amount of reduction once eligibility exists for other reasons.

5. Conclusion

United States v. Eural Black reasserts and hardens the Seventh Circuit’s rule from United States v. Thacker: the First Step Act’s nonretroactive § 924(c) anti-stacking reform cannot serve—alone or in combination with other factors—as an “extraordinary and compelling reason” for compassionate release.

The opinion’s broader significance lies in its institutional holding: the Sentencing Commission’s 2023 effort in U.S.S.G. § 1B1.13(b)(6) cannot override circuit precedent where, as interpreted by the court, it would conflict with Congress’s explicit nonretroactivity choice. While leaving a narrow path for consideration of stacking disparities at the remedial-discretion stage, the decision sharply constrains compassionate-release litigation based on sentencing-reform disparities in the Seventh Circuit and amplifies a mature circuit split poised for potential further review.